Show Me the Money
Call it the complacency crisis. Despite the rising number of new HIV infections among many groups in the United States, money for AIDS services has been drying up, according to a recent report co-sponsored by Funders Concerned About AIDS (FCAA) and the Gallup Survey. Without more money for prevention, education, and drug-access programs, the epidemic could spin quickly back out of control, the report warns. Since 1997, overall AIDS death rates have fallen all across the country, due largely to the arrival of new therapies. But a closer look at the national picture shows that the virus is spreading at a rapid rate among women, youth and communities of color, especially among the poor.

According to the FCAA report, the number of funders giving grants to AIDS service organizations (ASOs) has dropped 21 percent since 1997. "The FCAA is troubled by clear indications that philanthropy's commitment to HIV/AIDS is beginning to wane," says the survey, which points out that, in 1996, private donors accounted for $37 million dollars in prevention, research, and treatment funding. In 1997, that figure dropped to $30 million, even as overall philanthropic donations soared to $15.98 billion dollars. Some funders are now less inclined to support large, well-established AIDS service organizations, fearing they have a limited capacity for innovation and adjustments to changes in the epidemic. The FCAA report points to the disproportionate impact of the epidemic on minority communities and states that "domestically, there are more people living with AIDS than ever before."

Experts echo the FCAA warning: "There's a real concern that as soon as the disease is perceived as a 'black and Hispanic thing,' all the money we've seen for research and treatment ... will start to dry up," says Dr. Stephen Thomas, Director of the Institute for Minority Health Research at Emory University.

Little of this is news to AIDS groups who have been pinching pennies and cutting back programs for some time now. In New York City, the Gay Men's Health Crisis has been forced to sharply trim staff and programs to cope with the drop in funding, while two smaller groups, Body Positive and the People With AIDS Coalition of New York (PWAC NY), have merged in order to survive. The merger, they announced, "provides a responsible, proactive solution to the declining public and private financial support of ASOs." Their joint mission is specifically to address the "new service needs" of people with HIV, which include expanded education about treatment, benefits counseling, job training, and ongoing emotional-support programs, especially those geared toward women and communities of color. Prevention will continue to be a high priority, lowering the number of people (now estimated at 40,000 to 80,000) expected to be newly diagnosed this year.

Of course, charitable contributions are often solicited to fill in the gaps left by skimpy government funding. The last four years have seen no substantial increases in the federal budget for AIDS prevention, and Clinton's FY 2000 proposal for AIDS moneys offers no new funding for education or training centers and only half of the amount Congress approved for treatment programs under the Ryan White CARE Act. "A new generation of youth is at risk for HIV ... and President Clinton ... stands paralyzed in the fight to protect them," states Daniel Zingale, the executive director of AIDS Action. Meanwhile, federal AIDS Drug Assistance Programs (ADAPs) which provide anti-HIV drugs to those with no insurance are facing a $90.2 million shortfall in the year of 2000, according to a June report. Medicaid programs are also struggling with deeply inadequate budgets. Without immediate federal action, the present situation can only grow worse.

-SK